Samuel L. Jackson was recently on the Graham Norton Show, presumably to promote the upcoming IndyCar-ish movie Turbo, but, naturally, talk turned to his turn as a Jedi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. This included Sam talking about how Mace Windu’s lightsaber ended up purple and the special inscription on the lightsaber hilt that he has at home.

When talking about how he got the first ever purple lightsaber, Sam said:

We had this big arena fight scene with all these Jedi in there fighting and whatever. And I was like, ‘Sh-t, I want to be able to find myself in this big old scene.’ So I said to George Lucas, ‘You think maybe I can get a purple lightsaber?’ He’s like, ‘Lightsabers are green or lightsabers are red.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I want a purple one.’ He’s like, ‘Let me think about it.’ And when I came back to do re-shoots he said, ‘Let me show you something. It’s already caused a sh-t storm online.’ And he had the purple lightsaber and I was like ‘Yeah!’

And the inscription on the real Mace Windu lightsaber that Sam has at home is “bad motherf*cker.” That’s one thing that we know that Sam is.

Transcription via Gamma Squad.